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Britain’s Greatest Brexit Obstacle: Itself

Nothing about Brexit is easy. A bill in Parliament that would effectively graft European Union law onto the British statute book seemed simple enough, but it is now tying the government in knots.Credit
Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

LONDON — For all the talk of an epic conflict between the European Union and Britain over its planned withdrawal, known as Brexit, there are, in fact, several battles underway.

And right now the fiercest are in London.

On Thursday the British government pressed ahead with what was supposed to be one of the easy parts of quitting the 28-nation bloc, introducing a parliamentary bill that essentially cuts and pastes European Union law onto the British statute book to ensure continuity when Britain leaves.

But like almost everything about Brexit, this has turned out to be more complicated than it seemed. What at first appeared to be dry and technocratic legislation has become a political battleground, provoking protests from opposition parties, trade unions, the governments of Scotland and Wales and even some lawmakers from the Conservative Party of Prime Minister Theresa May.

That would be a tough challenge, even if the Conservatives were united over Brexit. But on Thursday hard-line, pro-Brexit Conservative lawmakers were organizing to resist moves to soften the economic impact of withdrawal by stretching it out — a stance the cabinet seemed to have finally agreed upon after months of feuding.

Damian Green, Mrs. May’s de facto deputy, was put on the defensive by a report in the Conservative-leaning Daily Telegraph that claimed the government’s strategy was in “disarray,” with deep divisions over immigration policy after Brexit. Mr. Green said he had not even read the leaked draft document on which the article was based.

All this comes against the background of intraparty jockeying to replace Mrs. May, whose authority was undermined by her disastrous decision to call an election in June in which she lost her parliamentary majority.

“There is going to be continuous low-level warfare within a party that is so divided,” said Anand Menon, a professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London. “There is a lot of posturing, a lot of signaling.”

That has turned discussions in Brussels into a “phony war,” said Mr. Menon, adding the European Union finds itself negotiating with “a moving target.”

There has been almost no progress in Brussels on the issues that need to be resolved before a long-term trade deal between the two sides can be addressed, and European officials are plainly unimpressed.

Minutes from a meeting in July recorded that Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive, questioned “the stability and accountability” of Britain’s main Brexit negotiator, David Davis.

For his part, Mr. Davis is convinced that a political deal will ultimately be done because continental Europe is a net exporter of goods to Britain. But this is a high-stakes gamble since Britain is scheduled to leave the bloc in 2019, the clock is ticking and British business is desperate for some certainty.

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The Europeans insist that before discussing future trade ties, there must be progress on issues like the rights of European citizens in post-Brexit Britain (and those of Britons in continental Europe); the future of the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland; and Britain’s agreement to pay billions of euros to settle commitments made as member nation.

A deal on British payments could be politically explosive within the Conservative Party, where a hard-line faction wants to pay nothing at all and simply engineer a clean break with the bloc, whatever the economic damage.

Other Conservative lawmakers accept the need to protect the economy, but the more access Mrs. May wants to Europe’s single market, the more she will have to compromise over money, immigration policy and accepting elements of European law.

Having lost her parliamentary majority, Mrs. May cannot afford to upset too many of the lawmakers on either side of the toxic debate over Europe, because it would take 48 of her party’s legislators to challenge, and probably end, her leadership. So the equivocation goes on, and the moment when Mrs. May confronts the tough trade-offs is pushed back.

Brexit is also divisive for Labour, the main opposition party, but at least it provides a chance to harry the government.

Labour has shifted policy and now argues for a soft, business-friendly transition to Brexit, heaping more pressure on the Conservatives to follow. It justifies opposing the latest Brexit legislation, which transfers European Union laws to British ones, because the government wants to allow ministers to make some alterations to the laws with very little scrutiny.

That would be done with so-called Henry VIII clauses that gained their name from the Statute of Proclamations in 1539, under which the king had power to legislate by proclamation. Proponents say the measure is vital to ensure a smooth transition, but critics point out that Brexit was supposed to strengthen the power of Britain’s Parliament, not circumvent it. While Labour looks unlikely to have enough votes to topple the government, it can make life difficult.

On Thursday there was no let up either from Brussels, where its chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, criticized Britain’s proposals for the Northern Ireland border. At the same time, the former president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, told the BBC that chances of trade negotiations going ahead in October, as Britain hopes, were “in the neighborhood of zero.”

Even Britain’s chief negotiator, Mr. Davis, has dialed down his trademark optimism over the talks, telling lawmakers recently that “nobody has ever pretended this would be simple or easy.”

Unfortunately that is not entirely true. As Keir Starmer, who speaks for Labour on Brexit, pointed out, Mr. Davis’s cabinet colleague, Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, once argued that negotiations for a trade deal with the European Union would be “one of the easiest in human history.”